Obviously, I'm not qualified to judge her mental condition. But you've had an opportunity to do some research. Even if your findings aren't conclusive, you have another arrow in your quiver.

The recommendation is to avoid love busters. I can hardly imagine the restraint and forethought that has to go on to completely eliminate them. This is why Plan A is so arduous and takes such a heavy toll.

It sounds like it. This may be the right time.

Well, right now everything is a lovebuster. Just being in the same house makes her uncomfortable. She constantly leaves to be at work or with friends. Plan A doesn't work because of her extreme negativity toward me, which I can only explain as hard-heartedness toward me because I am the obstacle in the way of her finding true happiness with the OM. I did a good plan A for a long time. She recognized it. But, she's in withdrawal so she won't have any of it now.

Poor pitiful her. It's so sad she can't be with her soulmate. It's pathetic.

Do you know these friends she goes off with? Does she tell you about these friends?

Yes. The friend that tells her she only goes around once so she should go find someone who will make her happy. God wants us to be happy so we should do things that makes us happy, including divorcing your husband. The friend who helped cover her first affair even though her husband had cheated on her.

Something tells me your WW's 'friend' may be your wife's alibi for her seeing OM....

Fred,
How long were you married. Did your WW always show signs of the disorder or did it just pop up?

The Leopard and I were married for just over six years (I have since "run the numbers" and discovered her average is about 6.5). I was her fourth husband (), she was my second. She had left all of her previous husbands (). She had children by two of them, and left her children (). She came into A.A. () and I first spoke with her the day she celebrated a year clean and sober.

She had a horrible childhood. Born to an alcoholic mother out of wedlock, she never knew her father. Her mother was killed in a drunk-driving auto accident when she was seventeen. In every respect, she was raised by her grandparents.

So in many ways, yes she did exhibit the traits of disorder. Except that I didn't know about personality disorders, nor did I care. In what I have come to learn is typical Borderline behavior, she learned what my weaknesses and desires were and transformed herself like a chameleon to be what I wanted her to be.

There's a whole lot more, but much of it is in my thread. The bottom line is that a BPD doesn't exhibit psychotic behavior --far from it, at least at first-- but for all intents and purposes is charming, outgoing and alluring. Because of my own personal issues, I chose to ignore the and figured her past would be "cured" by A.A.

I should have known better. A.A. doesn't make any such promises. Its sole focus is on enabling the alcoholic to achieve recovery. It was my fault for thinking all of her problems were due to alcoholism. She even followed the BPD path of getting into a "helping profession" and became a substance abuse counselor. This made her appear an "expert" in the field although she never got her degree or any certification above "assistant" status.

This isn't my thread, arkhawk, so I'll stop here. I am still studying and researching, but I have shifted my focus now on me. I want to understand my own issues and learn (a) what it was about me that made me "easy prey" for a BPD, and (b) what I can do to change those things about me.

I hope my little digest version has been helpful. You have to find your own answers. Good luck and God bless.

Well, I'm not sure if my wife has a disorder or not. She says no and says her doctor says probably not. But he says she has emotional abuse problems from me (apparently not talking enough to her was emotional abuse. I can kinda see that, but this woman sends 4000 text messages a month. I don't think anyone could satisfy her needs for communication.)

Anyway, she is all-consumed with needing to find herself and she no longer wants to be married. She is incredibly angy at me for exposing and says that everyone she talked to (2 psychologists, 2 lawyers and her friends) said it was inappropriate and that Dr Harley is wrong, because of all the hurt it caused. I'm sure she told them they were just friends and I caused unnecessary drama. I'm sorry but secretly meeting old boyfriends, calling them constantly, telling them you want to be with them and that you love them and lying about/concealing what you are doing IS an EA.

I keep asking her why are you still here...she says for the kids. I said get rid of the anger toward me. I don't deserve it, you brought all this on yourself, she disagrees with all of the ramifications being her fault, but says she is afraid she's going to hell for how she is treating me. I don't believe she thinks that or she would stop.

I still see signs of fog after 3 weeks of "supposed" no contact. Well, not signs, thick fog.

A lawyer told her to move her money and file for divorce. She didn't. Not sure why. She clearly wants a divorce but the fog is still there. Tried to get to resolution today about either making a plan to stay or leave, but she said she was too stressed and went to bed. I know, I'm being played. Sorry for the incoherent rant, I just finished talking with her and the conversation didn't go the way I wanted and she left before I could finish...leaving me frustrated.

I think Pepperband said it best (and if I'm attributing this incorrectly, I apologize):

"If you want to find yourself, check your shoes. You're probably there."

And oh, it was "inappropriate because of all the hurt it (exposure) caused?" I suppose having relations with a man not your husband is "appropriate" though, huh? The mind boggles at this bullch!t.

As for all the divorce talk, remember that actions speak louder than words. Almost every (no, make that EVERY) wayward starts using the 'D' word at one point or another. Few rarely follow through, however. For some reason they think talking/threatening it will somehow "make it right."

Most of the time, waywards want the BS to file, because that gives them validation that their wayward ways weren't aberrant.

Such is the way of the wayward.

I like that quote.

Yeah, she's pretty foggy alright.

I'm not sure on the divorce talk. I wanna believe it is smoke and mirrors but she's got me believing it.

Unless and until you see the papers, it's all fogbabble.

How fitting....

Here is a question that I was wondering today.

I know the fog starts to lift once no contact is in place for a while and the wayward is looking to reconcile.

But, what if the wayward is just biding her time, always hoping that she will reconnect with the affair partner. Will the fog lift after a while then. I am thinking no, but wondering...

Arkhawk,

Let me ask you a question? Do you think your wife was in love with you once? Before this OM came along, would you say that she was satisfied with your relationship and if not, what indicators did she give you that she was unhappy with your marriage? Have you addressed those complaints and are you now showing her your willingness and ability to meet her top ENs and avoid love busters?

I know about an unresolved affair and how it can sit dormant waiting to be rekindled. But in my wife's case, who went 13 months with no contact and suddenly picked up where she had left off, with an even stronger affair with OM, we did not apply MB to our situation and she continued to travel to the area where OM lived, visiting family right next door. She also remained in contact with friends in the area who told her of OM's every move during that time and so the fantasy never died because it was kept alive with bits and pieces of secondary contact. She contacted him again when she learned that he had been legally separated from his wife, who finally had enough of his serial cheating, lying and drinking. (Yeah, he was a prize, alright) We both know better now!

See, the question isn't whether or not you wife fell in love with OM as much as it is can she fall in love with you all over again. If she loved you but still fell in love for OM, it can work the other way around as well. Since you by now should be the new and improved version of the husband she fell in love with to begin with, by feeding that trend you should be able to get her back into a state of intimacy at which point she will find you irresistible. It ain't magic but more like science applied to solving a problem.

Really simple...

And maybe the hardest thing you'll ever have to do.

But this stuff really works.

Do what will make her fall in love with you. But she can never again have any contact with OM if he still has a big balance in her LB$.

Does that help?

Mark

WOW KOODOS Mark, this was GENIUS


I had not thought about it like that.

Scottie,

It's actually right their in the basic concepts. Love is a response to stimulus. Supply the directed stimulus the directed response follows.

What we call falling in love is merely a large Love Bank balance in someone's account in our Love Bank. It gets in there by them making more deposits than withdrawals. Once it passes the romantic threshold, we are in love with that person. No magic. No karma. No mystical connection through time and space...Just ring the bell and we begin to salivate.

Mark

I agree with the MB principles.
My wife was in love with me a long time ago. She says she fell out of love several years ago. Yes, I understand some of the reasons (not enough conversations, etc) and I made a great effort at showing that. However, just 7 days after ending affair #1 (who she says she cant stand now) she started talking with the new "friend". 3 months later she wants a divorce. Says that she could never fall in love with me. So the hurdle is getting her to believe it. But, since she says "I know God can heal the marriage but that's not what I want", I think the writing is on the wall.

That's what waywards tell their victims.

It's part of the WS script. We get:

ILYBINILWY
I haven't loved you for ____ years.
I NEVER REALLY loved you.
I didn't know what love was when I met you.
I could NEVER love you like that.
Even if I could love you again, I don't want to.


And that's just MY list that I got from the wife who sat beside me last night trying to teach MB to a couple who is so far into withdrawal that I'm surprised they are both alive.

BTW, that was where WE were 4 years ago.

Seldom does a woman who has been married for very long just meet some guy and run off with him. He is more likely the catalyst than he is the reason for the decision. When a wife decides to leave her husband, she has already closed the door on the relationship in most cases. She is DONE. Then she starts interviewing replacements.

Where most of us guys go wrong is that we don't see it coming in most cases. We fight tooth and nail, hammer and tongs for years, then one day the fighting stops and WE think it's because everything is now alright. Yep. We're idiots. The reason it's so quiet is because she has checked out. We think it is because we're getting along better.

But that is simply the description of what happens in a lot of cases and not the eventual outcome of those cases. It is generally where we realize, Houston, we have a problem. So it doesn't have to mean the end and can in fact be a new beginning.

But it certainly won't be easy and will be the hardest thing you do in your life whether you save your marriage or not.

But IF you actually want to save your marriage, then it might be possible. Best advice is to call the coaching center for help. If you can't or won't do that, then devise a PLAN and the execute that PLAN. The PLAN (not just talking Plan A here) removes the need to react to everything she does and lets you know what to do, when to do it and how to pull it off so that you can ACT rather than REACT.

It lets you jump when you are good and ready to jump and not have to jump every time she says to jump. And a PLAN gives you far fewer hoops to jump through as well, since YOU get to decide what hoops to include and which ones to skip.

So if you aren't done yourself yet, let's revisit:

What are her top ENs
How can you meet those ENs for her, given her current state of Withdrawal?
What actions of yours are love busters? Don't just think AO, SD, DJ here. What IB do you engage in and have engaged in for years? What kind of little, tiny, minute, minuscule annoying behavior do you do? You know this; it's the stuff she nagged you about long before the affair. This is the stuff that stops you from building a balance in her LB$. Day-to-day, done without thinking, repeated again and again drip-drip-drip empties the bucket just as surely as dumping it out.

What I'm telling you is that if you want to save your marriage, then have a plan that you can execute no matter what she does, says or provokes. Just DO IT until you have DONE IT and then STOP DOING IT and move to the next phase, which is Plan B remembering that Plan B is not an effort to win her back but simply a way for you to not kill yourself by being trampled while you wait to see if she ever wants to come home.

She never will, you know, unless you get the first part right.

You see, Ark, she fell in love with the guy you were. She fell out of love with the guy you became. Become the guy she fell in love with and she might fall in love again. But remain the guy she fell out of love with she will never fall in love again because she can't.

And you can't TELL her you are, or will be, or could be or...that guy again. You have to BE that guy again.

Thoughtful and not thoughtless in action.
Caring for her feelings in all that you do.
Strong, confident and acting with purpose.
With clear boundaries that say "You won't hurt me" instead of "Stop hurting me!!!"
There for her when she needs help, comfort or just someone to listen.

/peptalk

Mark